


Thinking

by swordznsorcery



Category: Visionaries: Knights of the Magical Light
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-13
Updated: 2016-06-13
Packaged: 2018-07-14 20:12:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 5,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7188398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swordznsorcery/pseuds/swordznsorcery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for Dead Fandoms, a series of ten ficlets/character sketches/moments of time on Prysmos.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Worried

She worries. She worries when they go into battle, for she knows that sooner or later the clash of sword on shield will turn into a whirlwind of growling. Steel against steel becomes tooth against claw, and she knows that she'll be left behind by it all then. She can fight with a sword, just the same as the rest of them; but when they leave their old weapons behind, and turn to their new world of magic, what can she do to help? Merklynn, either in his wisdom or as some kind of joke, gave her the dolphin as a totem, and whereas there are always going to be times when her swimming prowess will be useful, it's hard to appreciate many of them in the midst of a battle. She can fight Virulina, who with the totem of a shark is also locked into her human form on land - but fighting Virulina is not enough. Galadria wants to help, when her comrades are coming under attack. She wants to be able to support them, the way that she can when the fight is just about swords. More than anything, Galadria wants to help now. 

She watches. Halfway across the battlefield is Cryotek, in his massive bear form, under attack from the almost impossible strength of Cindarr. She knows that she can never get close enough to help out; not as a human. This has become a battle of animal senses, animal instincts. She would be spotted and deflected before she could do a thing. And so instead she has to stand by, as the man she loves more than anything else on Prysmos fights for his life against a towering, bellowing gorilla, fuelled by the force of something that none of them really understand. Leoric tosses his mane, and leaps into the skirmish with all the strength of a full grown lion. Ectar, smaller, thinner, but no less deadly with that cunning brain to back him up, has fearsome teeth and claws of his own. Even young Feryl, often clumsy and uncertain in a human body that he's barely grown into, is lethal when the magic takes over. She just has to stand by, and wish that things were different. Her sword feels heavy in her hand, and her skin feels as chilled as the water that is now halfway to being her home. She worries - and there's not a damned thing she can do that will make her worry any less.


	2. Tired

He had been mayor once. He had played at governing the city, secure in the knowledge that there were others far above him in the chain of command. They were the ones who had made the hard decisions, the important decisions - not that they had seemed nearly so hard or so important back then. Not when the city was still working, in the days before their civilisation had stumbled and fallen to its knees. Now the government is gone, lost in this world of magic, and unable even to try to lead the people. The responsibility has become his, and his alone. 

Not that he doesn't have allies who are willing to help him. Ectar, once the Chief of Police, and his oldest and most trusted friend, would always be by his side. Young Feryl, an intern back in the old days, and now becoming as battle-hardened as the rest of them. The other Spectral Knights, too; less familiar, but no less trusted for that. They are all there for him, but it doesn't lessen the burden. It can't. This is no longer a city ruled by a government; it is a kingdom ruled by one man. A man with a sword at his side, and a lion snarling in his breast. If he is going to fall beneath the weight of his leadership, he will not take his friends along with him. If the people choose to rise up and throw him out, as the troublemakers so often threaten, then he will be sure that the city loses only him. Leoric's load is heavy, but he is determined to carry it alone; for what kind of friend would he be, if he let the weight spill over, to bear down his comrades as well?


	3. Awake

The night is different now. Never overly fond of his bed, he looks at it now like a relic of another life; another time, before the magic came, and changed him more than he could have believed. He still needs to sleep of course, but it seems less important now. Something that can keep until the height of the day, when the heat makes his armour prickle, and the clamour of the marketplace outside the castle walls has faded to a muted murmur. Now he cannot think of resting at all. 

There is so much to the night. It's a truth that he has been aware of before, in idle moments. Stolen moments as a child, staring out of his window at aeroplanes flying by in the darkness; moonlit walks with a girl by his side, struggling to think of something to say. He had noticed the colour of the sky then, and the sprinkle of stars that showed through the glow of a city that had never truly closed its eyes. Now that old light is gone, and the darkness - the true darkness - comes to them every night. Every star is a bright flame in the sky. Every sound that used to be held back by the light; every eager animal, scratching for food; is loud in his ears. He sits on the windowsill of his room in the castle, and he sniffs the cold, crisp air. He can smell them now, as well as hear them. All those animals, and the scraps of food that they all seek. He smiles then; and deep inside him the wolf smiles as well. He's awake - so very, very awake - and he's glad of it. The night is beautiful, he realises. So fresh, and wild and _alive_. He knows that sleep will not come to him now; not with a sky full of stars, and the night wind to whisper its secrets into his ears. His body stiffens - and with a flash of blue light, Feryl the man is gone, and Feryl the wolf leaps out into the darkness. It is dark no more; not to the wolf's eyes. Sleep is for humans - and Feryl will never truly be human again.


	4. Excited

Witterquick is a cynical man. He knows that the world sees him that way, and he has no regrets about that. He is a practical man, and one who will do what is necessary, when it is necessary. He has no illusions, about the world or the people in it. What Witterquick is not, is excitable. He is above all of that, and is not afraid to show it; not afraid to arch an eyebrow, and project an aura of haughty disdain. Children get excited. Civilians get excited. Witterquick is a Spectral Knight; a man with responsibilities and enemies; with wars that must be fought, to keep Darkstorm and his minions from overthrowing all that is good on Prysmos. Above all, Witterquick is a man who likes to keep his feet firmly on the ground. 

Until now. It's the _speed_. Never has he felt anything like it; never has he imagined anything like it. Not just the speed; not just the sheer, raw energy that pushes him forward across the ground; but the fact that it is his. His legs, his feet, his muscles. The fact that his body is capable of racing so fast, across even rough terrain, without once losing step, without once stumbling, without even the slightest need to modify his pace, or worry about falling. It's as though every inch of him is alive to the world around him; instincts that he could never have dreamt of, once upon a time, feeling ahead and telling him where it's safe to put his feet. And what feet! They're small, and the legs that they support are narrow. Not for him great powerful feet and legs, like Cryotek's or Leoric's. He is not a man of strength, and never has been. But this - this is far better than strength. This is something truly magnificent. 

Is he smiling? He has no idea even if he can smile in this form, but a laugh bubbles up from somewhere inside him, springing to life as a curious sort of growl. He's half sure that he is smiling somehow, sharp teeth on display, and long tongue flapping about; for all the world as though he were a foolish cub, rather than a fully grown cheetah. He doesn't care. He doesn't care about anything right now. Not about Darkling Lords and the dangers they bring, or what battles there might be to fight tomorrow. He is running as he has never run before, experiencing an elation that he could never have believed possible. And by all the gods of Prysmos, it feels _good_. Witterquick barks out his joy, his pride, his sheer, unbridled excitement, and he doesn't care who hears it. Let history keep science; let the old world fall away. For this one moment, Witterquick would not give up the new world for all of the wonders that he used to know in the old.


	5. Calm

He stands. It's all that he can do, really. He can see no clear line of retreat, either as man or as fox. He's lost his weapons, he's lost his helmet. He still has his armour, but he has no faith in that being protection against four Darkling Lords, whether they choose to remain human or not. One good blow to his unprotected skull ought to be enough. Ectar has always been steady, always been reasoned. It's what made him such a good Chief of Police, once upon a time, and it's part of what makes him a good knight now. There's no sense in losing his cool, even if this does turn out to be the end. What good is panic going to do him? 

"Not so tough now, are you, Ectar?" Mortdredd's voice is a high-pitched sneer, and one brief flutter of irritation disturbs the calmness that rules Ectar's mind. If there is one thing that upsets him about all of this, it's that Mortdredd is here. The others at least are half decent adversaries, all capable in their way; one or two with something that he could even admire, had they not chosen to follow the dark path. Mortdredd, though - Mortdredd reeks of desperation and fear, even as he stands victorious. He is a boot-licker, nothing more, and the thought of falling to his sword is enough to make Ectar's teeth clench. There's nothing that he can do about it, short of trying to take the odious little man down with him, but that doesn't make it any less of a stain on his pride. Virulina laughs coldly at Mortdredd's comment. She thinks no more highly of the man than Ectar does, and there's scorn in her laugh; and even though some of it is directed his way, Ectar's glower fades, and he lets a smile of his own curl across his mouth. Somehow, even on the verge of the abyss, it's possible to enjoy seeing Mortdredd belittled. The moment is short-lived. When the pitiful Darkling Lord sees his smile, he raises his sword and calls to his companions to finish the job. No more time for smiling. Now comes the kill. Ectar's smile doesn't fade. It's hopeless, but he'll fight back, and he'll do the best that he can before he's put out of the battle for good. If there's one thing that he won't do, it's lose his head. 

"Having trouble down there, Ectar?" Far above him, on the old, broken stone wall that has so inconsiderately hemmed him in, there stands a man. A man in blue armour, and with a long and fearsome whip held tightly in his right hand. Mortdredd falters. So does Lexor. Only Virulina doesn't seem affected by the sudden appearance of Leoric - but when the shriek of an eagle heralds the approach of reinforcements, her haughty expression switches to cold fury. Mortdredd has already scuttled away, changed into the beetle form that suits him so well. Lexor isn't far behind. As Leoric leaps down from the wall, and Arzon lands neatly beside him, Virulina and Cindarr turn tail as well. Leoric laughs, and Arzon leaps skyward once again, happy to dog their retreat. Ectar merely smiles, as cool in triumph as he had so nearly been in disaster. 

"Nice timing," he says to Leoric, who leans a gloved hand on his shoulder, and stands with him to watch Arzon's aerial display. There's no need for either of them to say anything else. Leoric understands the gratitude; understands Ectar. That cool little smile has always been discourse enough.


	6. Silly

It's a warm, pleasant summer's day, one of the few on which they're able to relax, and they're all sprawled comfortably beside the decorative pond just outside the castle - or most of them are. Feryl is showing off to a couple of young women, prancing about in his wolf form, and flaunting his impressive teeth. Arzon, who has never been one to sit still, and even less to make small talk, is wheeling about in the sky far above them, racing the winds in his eagle form. Cryotek smiles at the sight. Arzon seems to be more eagle than man lately. It's fun to watch his acrobatics, whilst lazing in the warm grass beside the pond in comfortable inactivity. Leoric and Ectar are laughing at the two younger men, amused by their antics. "Boys will be boys," says Leoric, ever the sensible one. A few feet away, Cryotek pillows his head on his hands, and smiles up at the sky - for Cryotek, who is much older than any of them, and perhaps a little wiser as well, has a secret. It's not youth that makes Feryl and Arzon play - it's who they are. He hopes that they remember that themselves, as they grow older. A little fun is good for everybody sometimes; and you shouldn't have to be young to appreciate that. 

Which is why, when Galadria goes to her room later that night, she finds a huge, magical bear hiding behind the door, draped - rather artistically, Cryotek thinks - in one of her favourite cloaks. She stares at the bear. The bear stares at her, fluttering its eyelashes from beneath the sky blue of the cloak's far too small hood. 

"Is that you, or should I cut your head off?" she asks, tapping the hilt of her sword in a manner that suggests she might just be prepared to do the latter. The bear cocks its head on one side, considering this, then reverts back to being a man. A big, powerfully built man, draped in Galadria's favourite sky blue cloak. 

"Grr," he offers, in his best bear voice. Galadria folds her arms. 

"There's probably a reason for this nonsense," she says, trying to sound exasperated. She's beginning to laugh. Cryotek moves forward, not bothering to remove the cloak, and pulls her into a happy embrace. She's still laughing. He smiles in contentment, not telling her that this is the reason, or that perhaps there isn't a reason at all. 

It isn't just the young who get to fool around. Someday he might tell Leoric that. Better yet, Leoric might just find it out for himself.


	7. Refreshed

It's cold here. Actually, he thinks, with typical good cheer, it's downright bloody freezing. The sun is shining, but either it's forgetting to look his way, or it thinks he's a fool for coming up here, and has decided to teach him a lesson. In a world where science no longer seems to exist; a world where magic is all; why shouldn't the sun suddenly start to think? He wouldn't be surprised. Lately Arzon seems to spend a lot of his time not being surprised by things. Things that make so much of the population gawp and gape, panic and run away, or hide in their homes in terror. Things that seem to undermine all that they've learnt in their lives so far. That's life on Prysmos now. He's chosen just to accept it, because what else can one do when one's world falls apart? You fall apart as well, or you move on. 

Sometimes though, just sometimes it's nice to go back. Just occasionally. Arzon has never been a man to stare into the past. Never a man for senseless reflection and dark thoughts. He is the eternal optimist, and he hopes that he always will be - but even he needs a moment every once in a while. A place where he can go, just to stop and think; which is exactly what this is. This place, high atop a mountain so steep that very few people can climb there. He can fly nowadays of course, but still he's come up the old way, hand over hand, clinging to ledges that most people could never see, swinging across gorges with the skill of one who has been climbing ever since he could walk. 'Cliff-dweller', the Darkling Lords call him, as though somehow it's an insult. It isn't. His people were always climbers, and they always hid their greatest treasures in the high up places that only they could reach. Arzon's land fell to ravening warlords when civilisation collapsed, and he has no home now save New Valarak - but he does have this place. This little cave, forever covered with snow, high up above the rest of Prysmos. A place where he can come whenever he needs. 

He uses a tinder box, because there are no torches anymore, and he lights a candle that's waiting beside the door. There's precious little light, but it doesn't matter. It's enough to see what is there. A jewelled sword, the sword of a king, wrested from what was left of King Tazlon's palace; a picture beside it of a broad-shouldered, smiling man, and the family he raised. Arzon has not seen his father and brothers since their lands were stolen, and he has no idea where they are now. Away fighting somewhere, struggling to bring light back to the darkness, just as he's doing in New Valarak. Someday they'll win. Someday their world will be safe again, and the likes of the Darkling Lords will be vanquished forever. Sometimes Arzon has to come here and look at that sword, see the faces of his family, to remind him of that. Then, with his smile restored, and his head held high once again, he'll go back to rejoin his new friends. Ready for another fight. Ready for another round of the battle that he knows for sure will one day come to an end.


	8. Depressed

Somebody is singing. Drunkenly, he thinks. He raises his bottle of beer and toasts them silently, whoever they are. It's an unsociably loud song, raucous and a little off-colour, the way that so many of the best drinking songs are, at least to Ectar's way of thinking. He might try to join in, if only he could summon the energy. Another night he might just manage it, for he deserves a night off, and who is going to tell him otherwise? Tonight, though, he just sits on the bench and gazes out over the castle grounds. 

It's Memorial Day today. He has no idea who thought of that, but he's torn between wanting to give them a hug or a black eye - which is undoubtedly proof that he's drunk too much. Not that he needs the demonstration. The growing pile of empty beer bottles, and the dwindling store of full ones in the crate beside him, is already better proof than anything else. He sighs, and tosses another empty bottle onto the pile. Memorial Day. A day to remember everybody who hasn't made it this far. Everybody who died the day that the machines failed; everybody who has been lost to them since. He didn't think that they needed a special day for that, but now that it's here - now that it's nearly past - he's beginning to realise that he was wrong. He reaches for another beer, and glowers when he has trouble opening it. A voice echoes in his ears then, light and musical, and ever so gently mocking him as he fumbles with fingers that won't do as they're told. 

"It'll break if you're not careful. And then what?" And then the bottle breaks, and he's looking at a lap full of beer, and somewhere deep inside him comes a long, drawn out sigh. The same thing had happened then as well, in the days when that musical voice had not just been inside his head. She had laughed, and helped him to clear up the mess, with handkerchiefs and an old towel, and his socks, taken off earlier so that he could paddle. They had laughed, and he had put his wet, beer-soaked socks back on, just to see her smile once again. He would give anything to see her smile now. 

They've all lost something, he knows that. There's not a person in New Valarak who hasn't, to say nothing of the wider world beyond the city walls. Leoric has lost a brother, Arzon his homeland, Witterquick his whole way of life. They carry on as normal. So does Ectar, usually. Tomorrow he will do so again. Tonight, however, he cleans up the spilt beer with his cloak, and then reaches for another bottle. Maybe if he drinks a little more, he'll hear her voice again, echoing somewhere in the back of his mind. Maybe he'll forget the day that the machines failed; the day that her aeroplane dropped out of the sky. Maybe. 

In the meantime he'll sit here and stare at the grass, and wait until his life begins again, tomorrow morning.


	9. Morose

He rules the city because nobody else will. Others are more experienced, perhaps. Cryotek is a ruler in his own right; Galadria the daughter of a duke; Arzon the younger son of a deposed king. Leoric has royal blood in his veins, but he has never seen himself as a leader of men. He was a mayor before, in the old world. A role that called upon him to dress up in fine clothes every so often, and give speeches whenever somebody opened a new library, or hospital, or school. It hadn't prepared him to lead a city that stands as the only defence against an army of evil knights; but then, he supposes, there's very little that does prepare one for that. Certainly not in the world they had all been born in, with its luxuries galore, and everything that you could possibly want at the flick of a switch. A world with law and order, where justice had always been somebody else's affair. The most he had known about such things then were the tales he heard from his old friend Ectar, the Chief of Police, when they met for drinks in their favourite bar. Now he doesn't just have to think about law and order - he _is_ law and order. He and his band of six knights, with swords and magic and little else to keep their enemies at bay. He leads them, because they have chosen to make their stand in New Valarak, once the jewel of Prysmos, and now at the heart of the chaos. He leads them because New Valarak is his city, and of all the people who once had responsibilities here, he is one of the few who didn't panic and flee when the dark times came. He rules, because if he doesn't, what happens then? 

It's not easy, though. Leaving aside the endless fighting, the battles with cut-throats and thieves, with goblins and sun imps, and the streams of wizards and witches up to their mischief. Leaving aside the struggles with Darkstorm and his Darkling Lords. Leaving aside the warlords from other realms, eager to extend their borders as far as they can. Even without all of that, it's not easy. Discontent lingers everywhere. The old aristocrats hate him for his strength; the younger ones hate him for his magic. They all want his power, and they all think that they can do his job better than he; but none of them will ever challenge him for it. They demand things from him - gold from the dwindling city coffers for one foolish thing after another - and they stir up unrest when he refuses them. They tell the populace that he is a soldier, interested only in fighting, not in bringing them peace; and then stand back and smile when he has to reassure his people, yet again, that all he wants is an end to the hard times. They fight him, every inch of the way, just as Darkstorm does. Sometimes Leoric thinks that he prefers Darkstorm. At least his enemy makes no secret of his desires, and doesn't hide behind smiles of false intent. Darkstorm would sell his own grandmother, and quite likely already has, but he wouldn't pretend that it was for her own good. Leoric doesn't feel quite so tired, quite so despairing, after a battle with Darkstorm as he does after a session with the town council. One day, he believes, there is a real risk that he will be thrown out, by men who hate him for doing what they are too afraid to do themselves. One day he will lose his city, and have to stand back and watch it crumble under the onslaught of a tide no longer held back - or maybe he won't. Maybe their fear will keep them from truly getting rid of him. Instead he'll have to spend the rest of his life battling their petty obstructions. Neither is a particularly inspiring option, but he knows that the only alternative is to walk away. Leoric has never walked away from anything. He does not intend to start now. When Feryl knocks on his door, however, and announces that the leader of the town council is outside, no doubt wanting to demand yet again that the defence budget be cut, Leoric can't help but wonder if it mightn't be better just to quit. Leave them to see how they like his less-than-exalted position, as they struggle to sort out their own desperate muddles. The thought almost makes him smile; but right now he doesn't have the energy. One day he really should wash his hands of the lot of them, he thinks. It would probably be better for his health. One day. 

Even for a man of great principle, he can't deny that it's a very tempting idea.


	10. Lonely

The sky is vast. He has always known this of course. Who has not looked upwards at some time, in day or in night, and seen the splendour of what lies above? It's different though, when one is actually up there, a part of it, flying in all that spectacular, endless blue. Wisps of cloud pass him by; birds cross his path, as well as the occasional dragon. Other than that, there is nothing up here at all. Once upon a time the skies would have been filled with craft. Aeroplanes and gliders, hover-copters and air-sleds, engines roaring and rotors whirring, and exhausts turning the blueness into grey. Now they're all gone, rusting on the ground far below. He doesn't miss them, even if he does miss some things from the old world. He doesn't miss the noise, and the pollution, and he certainly doesn't miss the days when he had only arms and legs. Now he has wings, whenever he wants them; the power to fly up into the silence, and the emptiness, and the great, open blueness that has become his world. If he could smile with his beak, he would do so. Instead he smiles inside, and climbs up a little higher, just because he can. 

He flies a lot these days. Galadria worries about him, he knows. She thinks that he spends too much time alone up in the sky, with only the real birds for company. She worries that he is too easy a target for the Darkling Lords, when he is off in the places where no other Spectral Knights can go to give him support. Arzon supposes that she might have a point; but then Arzon is used to going off alone. He has always preferred the company of animals to humans; has always preferred the high crags and mountains to the teeming cities of the lowlands. Perhaps he's a loner, perhaps he's just strange. They're words that he's heard before, but they mean little to him. He is simply who he is - man, prince, knight... and eagle. He swoops down a little lower, watching a pair of young dragons testing their own wings in the warm updraughts far below. He recognises them as the twin sons of the two-headed black serpent that the people of New Valarak had wanted to kill back in the spring. Their attitude had infuriated him, and he had threatened to fight the entire populace if he had to - not the first time that he has had to stand against his own race for the sake of another. Alone against the world. Alone _in_ the world, perhaps. There are few enough who see things the way that he does, especially now. 

He has never felt alone, though. It's not his way to dwell upon things in such a fashion. Galadria might worry over his solitary nature, and his habit of vanishing into places where none of them can follow, but she worries for no reason. He is alone, but he is not lonely - certainly not when he can glide far up here, and watch the dragons play. When he can listen to the silence, and watch the colours of the sky change as the sun sinks into the west. So much colour. Such glorious, limitless splendour. He wishes - so very briefly he wishes - that he had somebody to whom he could show all of this. Somebody else who could come up here with him, in all this silent, multicoloured majesty, and see what he is seeing now. It's a foolish wish. There is only one other person he knows of who can fly, and that is Cravex, one of the Darkling Lords, and his sworn enemy. There is nobody else. Arzon wheels about, and watches the dragons fly off home; watches the sun sink further into the mountains; watches the colours deepen to darkening shades of purple and blue and black. Perhaps it would be nice, occasionally, to not be quite so alone. Above him the first stars prickle into life, and he turns about for home. They'll ask him what he's been doing, and he'll tell them some of it. Some, but never all. He can never quite explain his new world to them, and they can never understand what they can never see. Such is life. Sometimes a man chooses solitude, whatever his reasons may be - and sometimes, just sometimes, it is solitude that chooses the man.


End file.
